The bill was passed 344-36. Dennis Kucinich who was one of the few good politicians to vote against the resolution made a powerful speech against the bill which I have outputted below:

“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt,” he said on the House floor on Tuesday. “Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.”

“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.”

“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the ‘Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right: resolution.”

“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.”

“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?”

“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to human security of jobs, education and health care?”

“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”

It seems that Congress would rather take the side of Israel no matter what they did and when they vote in such numbers for a bill that few of them have even bothered to read purely on the basis that it is in support for Israel then one can only wonder why. Dennis Kucinich paid a price for his balanced perspective on foreign policy matters as he was later dropped from a Democratic fund-raiser in Palm Beach County because of his supposedly anti-Israeli stance in voting for the Goldstone report.

Indeed the political pressure from the Israeli lobby was also being put on the author of the report itself with the leader of the ADL (Anti Defamation League), Abraham Foxman, calling on Judge Goldstone to repudiate his own report with the following statement:

“I have had great respect for you over the years. Your work at the head of the South Africa Reconciliation Commission and in helping to find a just solution to the Bosnian conflict deserves the highest commendation.”

“Moreover, I know you to be a proud Jew who serves on the Board of Trustees of Hebrew University and who has a daughter living in Israel.”

“With this background, I wondered in the first place how you could take on the chairmanship of the investigation of the war in Gaza mandated by the UN Human Rights Council,” he said. “After all, the Human Rights Council has repeatedly demonstrated its bias against Israel and in its stated mission for the investigation began with assumptions presuming Israeli guilt.”

“Some people can be unfair, unjust, unbalanced and even of bad character. So it is with Jews. Just as a non-Jew can be anti-Semitic, a Jew can also be anti-Semitic and discriminate against our people and despise and hate our people.”

It seems that nothing is good enough for the Israelis and even though the UN put a vehemently pro Israeli Zionist such as Goldstone in charge to investigate matters it just wasn’t good enough to elivate fears of anti-Israeli bias. This really does play into the hands of true anti-Semites as it seems to observers that Israelis believe they can do no wrong. No country can be above reproach and get away with war crimes and that includes the USA, the UK and Israel however it looks like that anyone who questions Israeli behaviour is either an anti-semite if they aren’t Jewish or a self hater if they are no matter how much legitimate authority they have to do so.

This hypocrisy and double standards can be seen by the way that the Israeli treats war crimes. The crimes of the second world war which affected the Jewish community so much helped to change international law in that someone accussed of a war crime in one country can be tried in another. This concept of universal jurisdiction is one which Israel has used itself in its prosecution of suspected Nazi war criminals and they were one of the first countries to support the formation of permanent court of law for crimes against humanity.

However as soon as occupied territories (Palestine) were added to the mandate that the court could cover they suddenly changed their mind about this lofty ideal that crimes against humanity hold no national boundaries and voted against the founding of a permanent International Court of Justice joining the likes of China and Libya.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was none too pleased about the Goldstone report either and when he visited the UN to make a speech in September 2009 he told the assembly exactly what he thought about the report and the Human rights council who he said was “a misnamed institution if there ever was one.”

“Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted….”

“…Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

“That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. “

“We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. “

“Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.”

“Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.”

Rather than debate the reports findings and whether or not Israel has the right to defend itself which it undoubtedly does just like the Palestinians do when they are attacked we should let the reports author explain its findings himself. The following video is an interview between Judge Goldstone and Bill Moyers who discusses his report in detail and explains why the actions taken by the Israeli Defence Force were war crimes rather than just acts of war and collatoral damage.